Amputation! Terrible word for this poor young man, who sees before him no other alternative than an immediate death or the miserable life of a cripple.
He has no time to prepare himself for the last decision, and trembling with anguish, he cries out in despair: "Oh! What are you going to do?" The surgeon does not reply. "Nurse, carry him away, make haste!" he says. But a heartrending cry bursts from that panting breast; the unskilled nurse has seized the motionless, yet sensitive, leg much too near the wound; the broken bones penetrating the flesh, has caused new torments to the soldier whose hanging leg shakes with the jolts of the transportation to the operating room.
Fearful procession! It seems as if one were leading a victim to death.
He lies finally on the operating table. Nearby, on another table, a linen covers the instruments. The surgeon, occupied with his work, hears and sees only his operation. A young army doctor holds the arms of the patient, while the nurse seizes the healthy leg and draws the invalid to the edge of the table. At this the frightened man shrieks: "Do not let me fall!" and he seizes convulsively in his arms the young physician, ready to support him and who pale from emotion is himself almost equally distressed.
The operator, one knee on the floor and his hand armed with the terrible knife, places his arm about the gangrenous limb and cuts the skin all around. A piercing cry sounds through the hospital. The young physician, face to face, with the tormented man can see on his contracted features every detail of his atrocious agony.
"Courage," he says, in a low tone to the soldier, whose hands he feels gripping his back, "two minutes more and you will be saved."
The doctor stands up again; he separates the skin from the muscles which it covers, leaving them bare; as he draws back the skin he cuts away the flesh, then returning to the attack, with a vigorous turn, he cuts away every muscle to the bone; a torrent of blood gushes out of the arteries, just opened, covering the operator and flowing down on to the floor.
Calm and expressionless, the rough operator does not speak a word; but, suddenly, in the midst of the silence reigning in the room, he turns in anger to the awkward nurse, reproaching him for not knowing how to press on the arteries. This latter, inexperienced, did not know how to prevent the hemorrhage by applying his thumb properly on the bleeding arteries.